Paranoia - Super Mario Bros. AU

~Ch 8~ Your Fault

I woke up in a field of flowers. The sky light was bright and the sun was shining wildly. My body felt sore, I felt pain, I didn't want to move. As I fluttered my eyes open, I could see a shadowy figure hovering over me. It started running into the trees of the forest in front of me as soon as I managed to lift myself off the ground.

"H-Hey wait!" I felt myself call to the figure, without knowing why. On instinct, I sprinted after it, running as fast as my legs could take me. The figure was faster, though, and it was slowly starting to run out of my view distance. I kept forcing my legs to move faster, but it was just too quick. "Come back!"

"You."

"What?"

All of a sudden, I heard voices. Except it wasn't just whispers or anything, they all sounded... familiar. Too familiar.

"It's all your fault."

"You did this."

"You hurt me."

"Leave me behind, like you always do."

"I will never be enough for you, will I?"

"It's always my fault, isn't it?"

"You did this to me."

"It's all your fault."

Soon, I could hear hundreds of thousands of voices speaking to me all at once. It started to become overwhelming. All of them were talking about the same exact thing, or person. This time, I ran faster unconsciously. Knowing full well what the voices were talking about, I felt a need to escape that forest.

"Your fault."

"Your fault."

"YOUR FAULT."

Eventually, all the voices just kept repeating the phrase, "Your fault." Tears began welling up in my eyes. Fast. I was going max speed at this point, until I ran into a... force... field? There wasn't anything in front of me, no trees were blocking my path, the figure was gone, it was just me, in that dark and empty forest, but I couldn't move forward, and the voices were STILL THERE.

"L-leave me alone!"

I tried pushing my way through the invisible barrier, to no real success. The tears were pouring, and the voices were still voicing. I closed my eyes, wanting to scream as loud as I possibly could.

And then, it all stopped.

My eyes were reopened, and I stood near the edge of a cliff.

And, the figure was at the edge.

"W-who-?"

My questions were interrupted by a finger put over my mouth.

The figure didn't speak. It didn't even shush me, it just put a finger over my mouth. I couldn't even make out who it was, it had no real shape of anyone I knew.

And then, it did.

I watched as the figure morphed itself into a shadowy, black version of... me? Why did it do that? The now me shaped figure slowly moved its finger off of my lips. Suddenly, I heard it speak.

"Is it all too much, for you?"

Its voice was distorted and demonic, but I could hear a very small resemblance to mine.

"It has been pushing you over the edge."

I didn't answer. My nerves kept me silent.

I sat and watched (still behind the force field) as the figure turned to face me entirely. It didn't move for a second, didn't speak, didn't react. It didn't do anything, it just stared into my soul. I stared back, unsure where this was going. Things stayed like this for a good 5 minutes.

And then, it lifted its right hand and pointed at me.

HUNDREDS of loud whispers came blasting into my ears at once. Hundreds of thousands of millions. They grew louder, and louder, and louder. All of them were speaking too fast for me to understand what any of them were saying. It didn't matter, I needed to get out of there.

I once again tried pushing through the force field, adding more and more force within each attempt. The voices grew louder by the minute, they were going to deafen me. I kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing...

And then, I broke free, accidentally pushing the figure in front of me.

And then, I heard a scream.

And then...

I saw his hat float down the cliff.

"Princess, there's someone here to see you!" Toadsworth called from Peach's bedroom door. It was almost 12AM, the castle was cleaning up for the night. Peach had just finished watching a movie with Daisy and the two were playing a game of Uno. The girls planned on having a girls night. They felt it was right to have a little fun after that party.

"Oh, let them in!" Peach called back. The door was opened, and in walked Mario, wearing a red turtle-neck with some jeans. He looked horrible, there were bags under his eyes, they were filled with terror, the poor plumber couldn't sleep. His mind was filled with thoughts and memories he didn't want to think about. The princesses looked up from their game and stared at him. Peach gasped as her expression became fearful, while Daisy's filled with confusion.

"Yo, what's got you up this late?" She asked nonchalantly. The red guy only moaned of pain.

"Come sit down sweetie, you look horrible." Peach patted the rug next to her with a sheepish smile. Mario trudged himself over and flopped next to his girlfriend. He lowered his head and let out another groan of pain and tiredness.

"You wanna talk about it?" Daisy questioned with concern.

Mario could only mumble his sentences.

"I... I've been having... nightmares..."

"Nightmares? That doesn't seem too bad." She shrugged.

"About... Luigi."

The damsels looked at each other for a brief minute.

"We're listening, Mario."